Just Push the Button Jordan
by MADAM BETH
Summary: Takes place immediately after "Till Death Do Us Part"...Woody and Jordan have a talk about faith and love


"Just push the button Jordan." He sat perfectly still in his chair waiting for her to make up her mind. 

He didn't realize until that very second that maybe he was speaking metaphorically. Sexual tension is one thing....love is something altogether different. As her finger hovered over the key he felt himself asking, would she ever take that step? Could she ever take a leap of faith to open her heart just a little? 

Jordan sat listening to his words. She'd never known anyone that could read her like Woody could. 'Killing me softly' she thought, offering an uncomfortable smile to him. 

"Are you talking about them or us?" she asked herself and realized with a sudden flush of panic that she'd spoken that thought aloud.

He didn't answer her question...or maybe he did. Her finger hovered over the button, making her feel like the president preparing to take out some country she couldn't pronounce. He was right though, love wasn't safe...love was dangerous and there was always the possibility of getting hurt. But whether she actually knew it in her head was completely separate from what she knew in her heart, and on the scoreboard of her life, the Heads were beating the Hearts by a long run. She looked at him once more. But maybe this was one of those classic fastballs, low and inside that she could see coming before he even wound up. 

*Click*

Woody looked at the screen just seeing a jumble of letters and symbols. "What's it say?" he asked. 

She just closed the screen and said softly, "It was him." She stood up rubbing her damp palms down the sides of her pant leg. "So, I guess that's it." 

Woody sprang up as she turned to walk out. "I'm sorry Jordan." 

"Yeah well, like you said three people died because of it....I've, ah, got to take care of something right quick, I feel up to a burger and fries. My treat..." 

Jordan didn't give him a chance to answer as she walked out the swinging doors. She walked to the crypt trying to make sense of the futility of it all. The one thing she was sure of is that love hurts.

Woody stood and looked around the room. He rubbed his face with a sigh and turned on his heels and went to the door. He didn't understand why she couldn't talk to him more. On their excursions over the past weeks, he did most of the talking while she gave brief answers. She'd had what little faith was left in her soul tested today. If he was going to be totally honest with himself, his faith had been tested as well. He didn't become a cop to have to take lives; he did it to save them. But it sometimes got very hard to distinguish between the black and the white...and when appropriate the grey. And the longer he was a cop and had to take lives to save others, the more he came to realize that his faith left little room for the grey. He went to Jordan's office and sat down on the couch, not bothering to turn the light on.

Prayers, Penance and even the Last Rites all left a bitter taste in her mouth. Jordan stood over his mortal body, her mind screaming he was just a man; just like any other man. Vulnerable to the same temptations and showing the same faults.

Paul stood in front of her without his collar, a man obviously questioning his own faith. At least, that was what she thought until he began to read the 23rd Psalm with reverence and devolution. 

She envied that love.

After Paul had said his goodbyes, Jordan walked him out to the elevators and with one last hug she waved good bye, walking slowly back to her office. 

Woody looked up from the couch, seeing Jordan's shadow heading towards the door. He waited for her to speak first as she opened the door and stepped into the dark room.

"What are you sitting here in the dark for?" she laughed reaching for the light switch. 

"Don't Jordan, please. I just need to...rest a minute" he said quietly. 

"If you don't feel up to dinner, that's cool...." she added quickly. 

He droned out the rest of her sentence as he put his elbow back on the arm of couch and leaned his face into it, telling himself it was just adrenalin withdrawals. 

"Really...we're cool here now Wood......you sure you're okay?" she asked and sat down gingerly beside him. "Feel free to take the fetal position under my desk at any point during this...." she said with a slight smile in her voice, taking a deep breath and taking in the last few days events.

"I don't think it'd look good on my next psych-eval," he chuckled. 

"Do you believe Woody?" she asked. 

The question shocked her. Maybe it was the dark room. Maybe it was the confusion in her mind, maybe it was something she never wanted to admit; like the fact that she felt safe with him and truly care about his opinion. 

"I mean, what do you believe in?"

He thought for a minute trying to find the words that a week ago would have just rolled off his tongue. Now he wasn't so sure. 

"I don't know Jordan. I believe there has to be a God. I don't think that our existence is just a fluke. A divine sense of humor maybe, but not a fluke." 

"That's not what I meant Woody. What I meant do you really believe in love?" 

Woody took a deep breath and thought for a moment. He thought of all the good times he'd had with Jordan. The girls who'd come before her. Annie.

He thought of the past few weeks and months and Hell even years. He loved Jordan. Without a doubt in his mind or heart he knew that. His faith in life may have been knocked off balance but one thing he was sure of was love. And what the kind of love he felt for Jordan was.

"Yes. I do," he said honestly and turned his head to look at her, still not able to see her through the dark. "And what about you Jordan? Do you believe in love? I mean REALLY believe in love?"

Her mind screamed 'no' and her heart....

"Honestly," she chuckled, "I don't know." 

She leaned back against the sofa and took a deep breath listening to the muted sounds of the busy corridors, making out the dim shadows of furniture in the room.

"I stopped believing in just about everything when I was a little girl, and time after time I've been proven right. The second I'd open my heart the rug would be pulled out from underneath me. After awhile it just got easier to keep it closed."

Woody nodded. "Jordan...you're....you...."

He stopped to collect his thoughts. 

"Maybe it's just been the wrong people you've been opening up to...I'm here for you Jordan. I'd...follow you just about anywhere, no questions asked and...and...I care for you...more than I've cared...for just about anyone..." he said quietly and looked at the floor even though he knew she couldn't see him through the thick darkness of the room. 

"It's also a lot harder to feel...anything if you never open up...and that's not good either. Is it safer? I guess...but you'll never know unless you believe it's possible to be really in love with someone..." he looked at her profile in the dark. "I guess...that's sorta what faith is," he whispered and smiled tightly.

"Oh Woody," she sighed. "Don't. Please. I'm not up to this right now. I don't think you are either." 

With a waning smile she added, "You can do so much better then me."

"I know," he agreed readily.

Jordan laughed and out of something; exhaustion, defeat to the overwhelming day, and something tugging at the strings of her heart that she couldn't quite place, she lay her head on his shoulder.

"Thanks." she laughed and gestured between the two of them.. "So...then...why the heck do you want...this...? "

"Maybe I'm a closet masochist." he laughed.

"You're an enigma Jordan. Most of the time I've known you, I can honestly say I've hated you. I never met anyone who could make me more furious than you do...... but than I see the way you care about people you don't even know...with families that could care less. Victims that wouldn't have a voice with out you. I see the person you truly are. You're beautiful, smart... hot as hell, but above all you have a heart Jordan. Jaded, but still it's in there somewhere and I'd like to find it." 

Jordan felt tears burning behind her eyelids and pursed her lips.

"I'd...uhh...I think I'd be willing to...maybe...consider letting you try..." she said her voice betraying the emotions she was feeling. Then she fell silent.

Woody sat still knowing that tiny admission was a giant leap for her. He didn't dare break that fragile connection. After a few heartbeats he simply nodded and reached out to hold her hand. 

They had a long hard road to travel, with no guarantees. Woody knew the trip would be bumpy, but the rewards were so promising. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the top of hers. 

He could have stayed like that for the rest of the night, but her soft voice said, "I change my mind, pizza and pool....I feel up to pizza and pool, how about you farmboy?" 

Woody smiled in the darkness and cleared his throat. "I think…that sounds great…" he said and nodded. "But…could we sit?" he asked thinking about the reports he had to fill out tomorrow on the shooting in the motel. "Just a few more minutes?" he asked and she brought her hand up to rub his chest gently, reassuringly. 

"Of course." She replied quietly and they just sat in silence for a while. Together. 


End file.
